Stats

The idea for this painting was to try to kill three birds with one stone. First, death metal is one of my big passions, so I wanted to do a painting that incorporates a common lyrical theme from the genre; in this case I chose the occult temple. I love sci-fi that mixes lo-tech with high tech, and I keep getting asked to paint a mech/power armor, so I thought the inclusion of the mobile suit would be a cool way to add a high tech element. The power armor ended up looking a lot like the marine armor from Starcraft, which wasn't my intention, but I guess that's the result of too many years of looking at mech designs. The third element I wanted to include was a woman with fairly tight clothing, not because I wanted to sexualize the piece, but because I haven't had much practicing with painting semi-nudes.

Anyways, combining all three factors, I ended up with the concept of a female vagrant/bounty hunter (you decide!) in her power armor traversing a jungle environment. She then happens upon a hidden temple where a cult worships the demon Beelzebub. Choosing Beelzebub was a fun excuse to paint a giant fly skull on the front of the temple. If you look closely there are also some fly arms and a bat wing sculpture jutting out from the left-facing wall. I really like how this all came together; especially because I love painting vegetation and overgrowth (I was an environmental science major). For anyone wondering, I had some help with some custom brushes for the foliage.